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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25160911">b-sides</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightblaze/pseuds/Nightblaze'>Nightblaze</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>monsterhunter au [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>We Are The Tigers - Allen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, F/F, fuck tagging oneshot collections i wont do it!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:09:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,721</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25160911</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightblaze/pseuds/Nightblaze</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets of the lives of a cheer squad turned monsterhunting troupe.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kate/Eva Sanchez (We Are The Tigers)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>monsterhunter au [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1822732</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. lonely nights for lonely people</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>remember when i said i would start writing these AFTER i finished the main fic? well...</p><p>while i would recommend reading the main fic for context, it's not strictly necessary!</p><p>tw in this chapter for alcoholism in farrah and clark's sections</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Ghosts can’t sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chess found this out after laying down next to Kate for three hours, eyes closed, and it never came.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It felt weird to separate now that Chess was back in the realm of the living, even if they hadn’t talked out all of their problems yet. Kate cried for at least an hour earlier. They’d put the fight behind them for now, because sometimes it was more important when you got the chance to be with someone who you thought you’d never see again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, though, Kate was sleeping, curled in on herself as usual, but Chess was just restless. She had no body to sustain, and she supposed that meant that she would never get tired, and would never have to sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chess stood and scarcely made a noise as she descended the stairs and left Kate’s house. When she had been alive, Chess would often sneak out onto her roof in the late hours of the night or early hours of the morning. She would watch the dimly twinkling stars, partially blotted out by light pollution, and breathe in the brisk night air. It had always felt invigorating, like she was really breathing for the first time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She took a deep breath. It wasn’t the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chess began the walk to her own house and marvelled at her lack of a shadow every time she passed under the streetlight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Middleton house soon stood before her, and Chess’ heart ached. Up on the second story, on the left, her dads were probably deep in sleep, and down the hall from them and across from one another were Jason’s and Jane’s rooms. At the end of the hallway was Chess’s room. She wondered if they’d searched through it. She wondered if they’d dug through her mess of a closet and found all of the old art projects. The words </span>
  <em>
    <span>suck my dick</span>
  </em>
  <span> had been carved into her desk ever-so-elegantly by Kate last year, and ever since Chess had kept it covered by her pencil case. Had they looked under it, maybe had a laugh? She hoped they did. She hoped that they were okay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Entering the house was easier than Chess had expected. Her dads had installed an alarm system a while back, and it might activate if the door was locked. But ghosts in the movies were always able to walk through walls. Chess thought of becoming even more incorporeal and was pleasantly surprised when she stepped through without issue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inside the house was dark and quiet. Chess could hear the white noise that Jane played in her room, vaguely, but it became more clear as she ascended the staircase. Walking down the hall felt like it took an eternity, and the door of her room loomed menacingly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stepped inside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had all been packed away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Boxes were stacked haphazardly, labelled in bold black sharpie: Chess clothes, Chess trophies, Chess books. Her bedsheets were folded neatly next to the boxes, although the bedframe and mattress remained. Her desk was still there, but cleared off. She ran her fingers over the ragged letters of Kate’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>suck my dick </span>
  </em>
  <span>message.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A dog barked. Chess froze, remembering the last moments of her life: the dog, the knife, the pain, the end.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was just Ollie, of course. Once the panic faded, Chess could recognize the sound of her own dog. He kept barking, right outside her door, and Chess was about to go see what he was doing when she heard footsteps coming from down the hall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is it, boy?” her dad said, his voice groggy and muffled through the door. She could hear him sigh. “You miss her too, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chess’ heart could have broken then and there, but she wasn’t sure she still had a real one. The door was pushed open, and half of her wanted to show herself to him, but the other half was afraid. The fear won out in the end. When she looked down at her hands, they were gone, save for a faint silver outline. Her father stepped into the empty room and Ollie rushed past him, staring up at Chess.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop goofing, Ollie,” her dad said softly and he slowly approached the box labeled for pictures. He sat slowly, almost shakily, and took off the lid. For several minutes, he wordlessly sorted through the photos. Chess recognized most of them. Her, Jason and Jane at Disneyworld. Her and Kate eating ice cream after a football game. The entire cheer squad during a rare moment of peace. Her learning how to ride a bike. She hadn’t even realized that they had saved all of these pictures.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chess was so caught up in watching her father that she didn’t hear Jason walk in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dad?” Jason looked exhausted in a way that sleep wouldn’t fix, and older in a way that time didn’t make. “You okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The dog was barking,” he replied after a second. His voice was choked up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason sat cross-legged next to him silently and picked up another photo from the box. It was Chess on the Fourth of July, her face illuminated by the yellow light of a sparkler. When her dad broke down in a sob, Jason sat there quietly and rubbed small circles on his back, but Chess didn’t miss the tears that also ran down his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m right here! </span>
  </em>
  <span>She wanted to shout it. Let the illusion fall away, hug them both and tell them that she loved them one last time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The both of them eventually plodded back to their rooms with sleepiness in their steps, but Chess slid down the wall and brought her knees up to her head, wishing that she could close her eyes and drift away like they could. To forget about her barren room, all the fragments of her life piled into boxes, all the proof of her existence hidden away.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m right here, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she cried in her head as they left her cruelly alone. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m right here!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ghosts can’t drink.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Farrah found this out the night she and the other ghosts confronted Riley.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been a shitty night: she and Chess had agreed to go talk to their killer, and Clark ended up coming with them. Farrah had wanted answers. She’d wanted some kind of justification for her death. Why did </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>have to die? She was fifteen, and the rest of her life had been taken from her. There had to be some reason, and there had to be retribution.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then Riley had told them the truth. When there’s a tumor, you cut it out, Riley had said. Farrah would have gone for her throat then and there if Chess and Clark didn’t suddenly take Riley’s side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Farrah’s last living moments on Earth were a muddled mess of sadness, intoxication, and fear. The glint of a blade, Riley’s emotionless face, a scream, and the world had faded to black. She’d just decided to try and get herself better. And now Riley was telling her that the reason she’d had to die was because she was just too much of a problem to keep around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What a fucked up way to go, right?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The short story is that, after that, Farrah wanted a drink, deserved one. Her old resolution seemed stupid.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The longer story is that Farrah didn’t want to feel anymore. She had lived on a delicate balance of emotional and stoic. If she </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>feeling, she was pissed, or she was hating herself, or she was crying. But most of the time, the alcohol had soothed that all away. Turned the emotions into a dull ache instead of a piercing shot. When happiness wasn’t an option, emptiness was. And Farrah needed that now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chess had introduced a few little tricks to Farrah and Clark—phasing through walls, invisibility. They would prove very useful in sneaking into the basement to get to the wine cabinet. It made it easy enough that Farrah almost felt stupid for all the antics she’d gotten herself into trying to sneak downstairs, unlock the cabinet, and erase her tracks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Holding objects wasn’t a problem. It seemed like tangibility was the natural state of ghosts, contrary to popular belief. It was the intangibility that took concentration. So Farrah poured herself a generous glass of red wine, left the bottle open so she could come back for a refill, and raised the glass to her lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was after Farrah had a sip in her mouth that she realized she couldn’t swallow. Something that was a part of everyday life, that had never taken any thought before. It was just… gone. Like phantom limbs, a sensation that the body she’d lost </span>
  <em>
    <span>should </span>
  </em>
  <span>still be with her, even though she knew the ashes she’d left behind were in an urn on the mantle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The anger suddenly welled up in Farrah again as she spat the mouthful of wine into the sink. “Fuck!” she shouted without regard to her step-father, mother or step-sister sleeping upstairs. She threw the glass onto the floor. It shattered and the red liquid spread across the hardwood in a manner that was much too similar to the way Farrah had seen her own blood pool in Riley’s shower all those weeks ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was sad. And she was confused. And she was self-pitying, and self-hating, and the world felt like it was crashing down around her, but the overwhelming emotion was just anger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anger towards her mother, for getting remarried after finally leaving her bullshit husband. Anger towards the squad, for promising to support her and then turning their backs on her. Anger towards Annleigh, for being righteous and good. Anger towards Riley, for robbing her of growing up, like she should have been able to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anger towards herself for the tumor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>God, she needed a </span>
  <em>
    <span>drink. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Farrah was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t hear Annleigh come down the stairs, or the first two times she said her name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Farrah?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was shocked out of her spiral, eyes whipping up from where she had been staring at the wine and glass on the floor. Annleigh looked afraid. Farrah didn’t blame her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Farrah said, and then she faded into invisibility. Annleigh blinked slowly, approached the shattered glass, and sighed when she saw it. Farrah began to walk away silently, but stilled herself when Annleigh spoke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know if you’re still there,” she was saying softly as she found the broom where it was tucked in a crevice between the counter and the fridge, “But I wished you believed me when I told you that you could talk to me. Whatever you’re feeling, you shouldn’t have to deal with it by yourself.” Farrah bit her lip as Annleigh began to sweep up the glass. “I know you’re not religious. But we were blessed with another chance to really be sisters, and I don’t want to give up on that. You’re not alone, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Farrah debated this inwardly for several moments, and Annleigh stopped sweeping for a moment to glance around the room expectantly. When no response came, Annleigh pursed her lips and moved to start cleaning up again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know,” Farrah started shakily and Annleigh could have given herself whiplash with how fast she scanned the kitchen this time. “You really shouldn’t clean up glass without shoes on. You’ll hurt yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annleigh laughed but it sounded watery. “Yeah. You’re right.” When she left to grab shoes, Farrah finally found her way back to her room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annleigh was trying, and Farrah appreciated it, but she knew she would never take up her offer. Annleigh would never understand the welcoming abyss of emptiness, the shallow relief it provided. She would also never understand how it felt to see her own ashes on the mantle every day and watch all her friends move on from her death like nothing had happened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, Farrah was alone. She stood in her mess of a room, filled with little pieces of who she was, hollow and worthless and superficial, and this, she knew.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ghosts can’t cry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clark found this out when he followed his older brother to his own grave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had been splitting his time between hanging out with Annleigh, praying or just hiding out at the church, and trying to do little good deeds out in the world. He had what felt like all the time in the world to do anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The one thing he couldn’t do, though, and that was go home. He couldn’t bear the thought of going home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t like Clark feared his family—they were the perfect depiction of American suburbia, and they were wonderful people. An older brother who played basketball with him, a younger sister who loved to play piano for him. A mother who devoted herself to loving and supporting her children, a father who worked long hours but was always spending weekends with his kids.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, it was the fact that Clark knew that they wouldn’t know what to do without him. They were picturesque, the American Dream incarnate, and that didn’t usually include a murdered son. They hadn’t equipped themselves for a situation like this. It scarcely felt real to Clark most days, and he couldn’t imagine what it was like there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clark was strolling invisibly on the sidewalk and made the mistake of walking by the high school as basketball practice was ending. There he was: Clark’s older brother Paul, star of Giles Corey’s basketball team. He wore a grin on his face, but even from a distance, Clark could see how forced it was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It would have felt like dying all over again if Clark hadn’t followed Paul. He phased into his car and watched the neighborhoods roll by as Paul drove off. They passed the turn that would lead to their house, passed by the church, and with a jolt, Clark realized where they were headed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The graveyard where Clark’s family had a plot was smaller compared to the sprawling one attached to their church. They had buried their uncle—Clark’s mother’s brother—there, as well as the ashes of the family dog. He hadn’t thought that they would put him, or his ashes at least, out there, but then again, he never thought he would be dead before he was a legal adult.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Paul parked the car in the small, overgrown parking lot and sat there silently for several minutes. Then, he took a deep breath, and stepped outside. Clark followed him through the unkempt grass and shrubs, back to the corner where he knew his uncle and dog were buried.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was something very… chilling, to say the least, about seeing your own gravestone. Your name, engraved in blocky letters, two dates, and a short epitaph. That was all that marked your final resting place. It was haunting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Long time no see, bud,” Paul started to say, and Clark couldn’t help but quietly gasp. How long had it been since he’d heard his voice? “Sorry, no flowers today. The florist ran out of pity for Leah, I guess, and she doesn’t want to bring you less-than-stellar floral arrangements.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clark opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself just in time. He couldn’t bring Paul into whatever monster hunting business the squad had just agreed to by revealing himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She misses you, you know,” Paul continued and he sat down in front of the gravestone. “I think she’ll come with me one of these days, but… She’s not doing so great. I keep thinking we hit rock bottom, but then we just get lower.” He picked at the grass and Clark sat across from him, beside the tombstone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I found mom passed out on the couch yesterday. Six bottles of beer this time,” Paul commented, like this wasn’t news. Since when did their mother drink, or drink heavily? How much had Clark missed?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A lot, he realized. Too much. Weeks. Months.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think they might get divorced.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clark’s heart sunk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dad doesn’t know how to help her. He barely knows how to take care of us. I’m sure you could talk some sense into him. You were always better at the emotional stuff than Leah and I are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Paul continued to talk for what could’ve been hours, about anything and everything that had happened between his last visit and this one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kylie asked me to the winter formal, but I think it’s going to get cancelled again…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you hear about the new girl who joined the cheer squad? I know you must be worried about Annleigh. I wish she’d talk to us more. She’s going through even more than we are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I guess I have to be the one to tell you about Mr. Jacobs. Yeah, he got killed. There’s been some really freaky stuff happening recently. I told you about the other two, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was nice. Horrifying, yes, because life carried on when Clark wasn’t in it, and the thought made his head spin, but just hearing about everything he had missed. It felt like he was part of the family again. It could have been a lovely moment, but then, while Paul was getting ready to leave, he dropped one last revelation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wish we’d switched places, Clark. You’d know how to deal. You’d know how to keep us together. It would be better if it had been me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Clark said with a surprising force before he could think it through.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Paul blinked and fearfully glanced around the empty graveyard. “What?” he whispered. “Clark?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, jeez, he’d really screwed up this time, and he just kept talking. “I love you,” Clark continued hoarsely. “Make sure Leah knows I love her, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Clark?” Paul repeated and there were tears welling in his eyes as he searched for his brother. “Is… Is that really you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clark kept his mouth shut this time. He’d done too much already.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Clark!” Paul shouted and the tears began to fall. “Clark, come back!” And Paul fell to his knees. “God, is this some kind of cruel joke?! Some kind of test of wills?! </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck </span>
  </em>
  <span>you! Fuck you and all your </span>
  <em>
    <span>stupid </span>
  </em>
  <span>rules!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clark curled into himself, tried to block out Paul’s endless profanities against God, his sobbing and sniffling. The sorrow washed over him, wave after wave, endless. Paul spilled his soul bare in front of him and no matter how much he thought he would, no tears fell from his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This had all been a terrible mistake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Paul drove away eventually, leaving skid marks in the asphalt, but Clark stayed there, wishing for the release that being able to cry would bring until the sun rose the next morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was painfully and wholly alone.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. about the girl who had nothing to do with this</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Eva's like took a sharp right turn when she joined the Tigers. Guess there's no going back, so she makes the best of it.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Eva prided herself on how well she could handle high-stress situations.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Captain of the Titans? Sure, easy. Doing a whole chemistry project in one night? That’s fine, that’s okay. Transferring to the school and onto the cheer squad where three people were killed during a sleepover? Sure, great, cool.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley - a sweet, if intense girl - suddenly summoning the ghosts of the murdered kids back from Hell and in the process, unleashing abyssal monsters out into the world? Well, Eva didn’t know about that one. Nevertheless, she was caught in the mess.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In some ways, her life didn’t change all that much. Eva still ate dinner with her family most nights. She went to cheer practices in the gym. She spent a couple of hours each evening doing her homework. It’s just that, in addition to that, several times a week, Eva also fought against devils and fiends and banished them back to Hell with the help of three ghosts and the other Tigers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fun, normal, absolutely fine, regular teenager things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You good?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eva blinked and she quickly collected herself. The last grotesque arm of the creature they’d fought was quickly disappearing in a dark fire as Riley stood over it, blood dripping from her open palm. Yep. Normal stuff.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Eva responded to Kate. “Just thinking about how fucking weird my life got.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kate laughed and sheathed her silver blade that had, a couple minutes ago, been plunged into the exoskeleton of that monster. Eva didn’t like being a stereotypical lesbian, but God, girls with swords (or daggers, she supposed) were hot as hell. “Tell me about it,” Kate said. “Four months ago my best friend was alive and my biggest worry was making sure Farrah and Cairo didn’t stir up shit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though monsterhunting wasn’t Eva’s favorite activity in the world, it certainly made it better that Kate was there. Sometimes she sort of thought Kate looked back at her with the same electricity that Eva felt. Hoping, however, didn’t seem like a good idea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eva’s phone buzzed. A text from her mother. “Shit, I’ve got to go,” she said. “My mom’s looking for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, I’ll see you tomorrow?” Kate asked. Eva glanced over towards her, breath catching in her throat for just a second. She smiled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That little conversation was worth the chewing out Eva got from her mother for going out without saying anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another unexpected side effect of joining the Tigers were the visits from Farrah.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first time it had happened, Eva was sitting out on her porch after the sun had set, enjoying the warm breeze in the cooler night air, listening to music. A moment of peace in her new hectic life. Then, a bone-chilling wind blew by, and Farrah was standing there, arms crossed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry for showing up out of the blue.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um… no problem?” Eva had responded, not quite knowing what she was getting into. She wasn’t even sure how Farrah knew where she lived.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As it turned out, Farrah had simply gotten sick of hanging around Annleigh all the time. Said that Eva seemed like an interesting enough person to go with instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was never really friends with the rest of the team,” she had explained once, a rare vulnerable moment. “Not like I was even friends with Annleigh, either. I think they all hate me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They don’t hate you,” Eva had reassured her, though even she could feel the shallowness of the statement. She pursed her lips and said, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“I </span>
  </em>
  <span>don’t hate you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Farrah had smiled bitterly. “You didn’t know me before I died.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eva had sat there for several minutes in silence, absorbing that truth. She’d never known Farrah or Clark or Chess before their untimely demises. What had their lives been like? She was hanging around with a ghost, somebody she never would have met if Riley hadn’t found her weird book. And here she was, unable to imagine going back to the life she had before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eva! Who are you talking to?” her mother called from inside the house. Farrah vanished into invisibility - weird that her friend could just </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, just practicing for a presentation!” Eva responded loudly. It wasn’t a lie, exactly, she </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>have a presentation tomorrow, but she certainly wasn’t rehearsing it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, get to sleep soon!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eva checked her phone. It was already eleven, and she was tired from kicking that centipede monster’s ass earlier, but she was too busy swimming in her thoughts to even consider going to sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d kicked a centipede monster’s ass today. And now she was just doing homework, chilling with her friend, except the friend was a ghost and was slowly becoming visible again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What the hell? Eva laughed to herself. What the </span>
  <em>
    <span>hell </span>
  </em>
  <span>had done for her life to go so wildly off-kilter?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you laughing about?” Farrah asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing,” Eva said with a smile.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>this is me when i realize that actual monster hunting showed up in the side stories before i included any of it in the main story. also i didnt edit this at all im so sorry if there are any stupid mistakes</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. part-time private investigators</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In eighth grade, Annleigh had been forced to work with Kate on a science fair project. They’d fought over every little detail, right down to if they should write with mechanical or wooden pencils. So it's a bit of a surprise when they team up to find the murderer.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>In eighth grade, Annleigh had been forced to work with Kate on a science fair project. They’d fought over every little detail, right down to if they should write with mechanical or wooden pencils. Needless to say they hadn’t won any awards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So if you had told Annleigh six months ago that her step-sister and boyfriend would be murdered and she would be investigating their deaths with </span>
  <em>
    <span>Kate </span>
  </em>
  <span>of all people, she would have laughed in your face. And that was before you brought up the monsterhunting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Annleigh, did you get my texts?” Kate hissed to Annleigh in the hallway. Annleigh blinked at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello to you, too,” she muttered but dutifully pulled her phone out of her backpack. There were a couple notifications from the cheer groupchat, but about eighteen from Kate.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Kate: look at ur phone omfg</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Kate: annleigh</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Kate: this is IMPORTANT</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It went on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s so important?” Annleigh asked and Kate practically exploded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They still think it was one of us!” she exclaimed. “Remember the tip we gave them? The description from Chess?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a pretty bad tip. Chess, Farrah and Clark all said that most of their last moments were unclear, but Chess said she thought it was a short white man, so Annleigh and Kate had passed it onto the police a couple weeks ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It wasn’t a lot for them to go on,” Annleigh tried to diffuse Kate’s bad mood. “We can keep digging.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kate rubbed her eyes and Annleigh noticed the prominent dark circles under them. “Yeah. Okay. It’s just so annoying. It… None of us would have done that, you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Annleigh sighed. Even if she didn’t show it like Kate did, she was pissed, too. Her step-sister and boyfriend and one of her teammates, killed. And the police had found nothing. How was that possible unless they just didn’t care? “You should be getting more sleep, by the way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I’ll try to find time in my schedule between killing monsters and searching for a murderer,” Kate scoffed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annleigh rolled her eyes, but her heart felt heavy for her. For both of them. “You’ll feel better if you actually rest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well…” Kate started and Annleigh raised her brows. No bullshit excuses. They were in the same boat. “It’s hard to sleep sometimes. I see Chess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annleigh nodded. “It happens to me, too. Sometimes I’ll just lay awake thinking about every way I could have saved them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It wasn’t your fault,” Kate said softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It wasn’t yours, either,” Annleigh shot back, almost angrily, and she could tell that neither of them believed each other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bell rang and the both of them jumped. The halls had emptied without their noticing. “Fuck this, do you want to skip? We still have to go over some of the case files.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Honestly? Sure. Let’s go,” Annleigh agreed. School felt less and less important every day, and it wasn’t like she did well before, anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll—wait, really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. You’ll have to drive me though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One Starbucks pitstop later, Annleigh found herself in Kate’s room, leafing through police interview transcripts and evidence notes. It had been an ordeal to make copies of them, involving a lot of fake crying and—huh, maybe suspecting someone on the cheer squad wasn’t actually that far-fetched because that was all very illegal activity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“God, I can’t believe that Riley’s the one who sounded most put-together. She’s the queen of freaking out,” Kate commented and tossed what she was reading onto the floor. “I was a sobbing mess. I didn’t even answer right when they asked me what my name was.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annleigh sat up, intrigued. “What’d she say?” She once heard of a case of a woman who had killed her parents and the only reason police started to suspect her was because she wasn’t freaking out during questioning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kate huffed as she reached for the papers again. “Uh, ‘investigator: was there any kind of commotion during the night? Riley: Nothing out of the ordinary. Investigator: What’s the ordinary? Riley: There was a viral video last year, and it caused some hard feelings. Really nothing too bad. We were all working through it together.’ Like, who talks like that after three dead bodies are found in their house?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, yeah, that’s…” Annleigh pursed her lips. “Weird.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There was no way it was Riley. It was Riley, for goodness sake. The girl who’s hands had shook when Annleigh gave her a knife to defend herself if a monster got too close. Except maybe that wasn’t fear. Maybe it had been guilt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annleigh almost spoke her theory aloud, but there was no way it was Riley. Just no way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Right?</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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